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Eating extremely local pigs

For pork lovers squeamish about hunting, check out this fascinating account of an intrepid urban farmer who doesn't let the fact she lives in the hood in Oakland, Calif., get in the way of her commitment to eating local. Very local. Like backyard local.

So ... here's the piggies on day one.

And last days.  Read up from the bottom. She's a beautiful writer, and she has some insightful things to say.

Climate skeptics blame the sun for global warming

Global warming skeptics everywhere are jumping on the solar bandwagon: "It's not greenhouse gases, it's the sun! Let's burn some coal to celebrate!"

There are, of course, many, many problems with the solar theory as an explanation for recent warming. To me, the most damning is that the correlation has failed in the last few decades. As highlighted in an interesting news item in this week's Science:

[Courtillot] and his team acknowledge that "anomalous warming" in the past 2 decades apparently cannot be linked to solar or geomagnetic activity, although they decline to ascribe it to greenhouse gases.

On the other hand, the mainstream theory that today's warming is caused by carbon dioxide (along with other anthropogenic effects and known natural variability) provides an explanation not just for the "anomalous warming," but for just about every climate variation over the last 100 million years.

Sign a petition to prompt Bush to address climate in his state of the union speech

This post is by ClimateProgress guest blogger Bill Becker, executive director of the Presidential Climate Action Project.

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President George W. Bush will deliver his final State of the Union address on Monday. We can be sure he will talk about Iraq and the economy, particularly the hot topic of the moment: recession. He probably will discuss Iran and the war on terrorism. He may talk about immigration and rising oil prices, two topics he raised last year and on which there has been no progress.

But will he talk about global climate change?

On the eve of the address, and in no uncertain terms, a group of the nation's leading scientists and policy experts is advising the president that he should.

"We regret to report that the state of the nation's climate policy is poor, and the climate and the ecosystems that depend upon it are showing increasing signs of disruption," the group says in a statement being delivered to the White House today. We can no longer discuss the State of the Union without assessing the state of the nation's climate.

Al Gore tells World Economic Forum the climate situation is dire

In a speech spiced with signature phrases like “moral imagination” and “planetary emergency,” as well as plenty of references to future generations, Al Gore warned attendees at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, that the climate situation is dire. “The climate crisis is significantly worse and unfolding more rapidly than those on the pessimistic […]

Better agronomy for energy crops

I believe improved crop practices are a vital aspect in meeting our cellulosic feedstock needs. There are a few areas that offer significant potential:

1. crop rotation,
2. the use of polyculture plantations,
3. perennials as energy crops, and
4. better agronomic practices.

We address all four issues here. Though none of these have been extensively studied, early studies and knowledgeable speculation point to their likely utility. Further study of these techniques is urgently needed, especially the use of grasses or other biomass-optimized winter cover crops.

Crop rotation

I have proposed the usage of a 10 year x 10 year energy and row crop rotation. As row crops are grown in the usual corn/soy rotation, lands lose topsoil and get degraded, need increased fertilizer and water inputs, and decline in biodiversity. By growing no-till, deep-rooted perennial energy crops (like miscanthus or switchgrass -- see below) for ten years following a ten year row crop cycle, the carbon content of the soil and its biodiversity can be improved and the needs for inputs decreased. The land can then be returned to row crop cultivation after ten years of no-till energy crops.

Currently unusable degraded lands may even be reclaimed for agriculture using these techniques over a few decades. A University of North Dakota study highlights some of the benefits for food crops. I expect similar or even greater benefits for food crop/energy crop long cycle rotations, especially in soil carbon content:

The latest eco-buzzword

The Washington Post has a good article yesterday on the explosion in the use of the term "green-collar" jobs. You will no doubt be hearing much more of this term since it is a favorite of Clinton and Edwards; Me and the Center for American Progress are on the bandwagon; and even the super trendspotting Tom Friedman has glommed onto it.

No, it's not a perfect term. G-C jobs -- my effort to coin the ultimate eco-buzzword -- won't get you a green uniform and green power-ring like the Green Lantern Corps, although you will, coincidentally enough, be promoting green power. As the Post notes:

... while white-collar and blue-collar bring distinctive images to mind -- the mutual fund manager screaming into his BlackBerry, the coal miner coming home, coughing from a long day -- such iconic imagery is hard to find with the green-collar worker.

Still, the term, popularized by social activists like Van Jones of the Ella Baker Center, does have a powerful ring to it [sorry about that], so I expect it will be around for a while. I will try to limit use to, say, once a month.

A plea for some pepper in the climate change message

On national security, Brian Katulis says progressives need a story to tell, and Matt Yglesias says they need some confidence. On climate change I’d make basically the same points: the progressive line is too much prose and too little poetry, and it’s delivered from a defensive posture. I liked Bill Richardson’s energy plan, but every […]

Report warns of new security threats from climate change

Climate change will create a range of new security threats, including millions of displaced climate refugees, according to a new report from Britain’s Oxford Research Group. The report forecasts a tumultuous climate-changed future by as early as 2050 where some 200 million climate refugees fleeing environmental disasters in their homelands will try to immigrate to […]

Nuclear power plants in U.S. Southeast may face shutdowns due to drought

Nuclear reactors across the U.S. Southeast could be forced to slow production or shut down in the near future due to the effects of continuing drought in the region. Nuclear power plants require massive amounts of water to cool steam that turns the generators; the water usually arrives via large intake pipes from nearby rivers […]

EPA staff supported California auto-emissions waiver, documents show

As suspected, U.S. EPA employees last year told agency Administrator Stephen Johnson that California had “compelling and extraordinary conditions” that would justify a federal waiver allowing the state to limit greenhouse-gas emissions from autos, according to EPA documents reviewed by Senate staffers this week. Nonetheless, Johnson denied the state that waiver in December. The EPA […]